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In the summer of 1922, a young Frank Reiber would make trips to Navin Field from his home in Detroit. At the ballpark he would go on the field and make himself useful to the Tigers by shagging fly balls and cleaning up. One day coach Dan Howley gave him a catcher’s mitt and asked […]

In the late 1930s, Malden (Massachusetts) Catholic High School principal Brother Gilbert, the same Christian servant who had recommended George Herman Ruth to Baltimore Orioles manager Jack Dunn two decades earlier, believed he had hit pay dirt again. He arranged a meeting between righthanded phenom hurler Joe Coleman and his former protégé. “Pleased to meet […]

In 1955 Cleveland News sportswriter Ed McAuley noted that “[George] Susce is a man of many admirable qualities, but the ability to hit a baseball frequently was not among his assets.”1 At the time this was offered, Susce was 11 years removed from his last major-league appearance and well along into a coaching career that […]

A right-handed slugger and sure-handed infielder, George Scales starred in the Negro Leagues in the 1920s and 1930s. He achieved a .323 career batting average, according to Seamheads.com, and he ranks ninth in career slugging percentage among Negro Leaguers with at least 3,000 plate appearances. The eight players ahead of him are in the Hall […]

If you page through the annals of Black baseball, you will come across watershed moments – the “First Colored World Series,” Yankee Stadium’s first game between Black ball clubs, Satchel Paige’s first professional no-hitter – and you will find a single face peering across the ages. Historic moments seemed to cling to Clint “The Hawk” […]

Hezekiah Allen, a catcher by trade, appeared in the one and only major league game of his life in 1884 for Harry Wright’s Philadelphia Quakers. In that game Ki performed well at bat, establishing a career .667 batting average, but did not field his position well. He was soon injured and returned to his hometown […]

For those who saw Tim McCarver break in with the St. Louis Cardinals, it was probably a surprise that he became better known for his broadcasting career than for his days as a catcher. Not that he wasn’t always articulate and glib, and that his finding a home in the broadcast booth was a shock; […]

Biff Maloy was a “new find from the wilds of Michigan” who joined the reigning world champion Boston Red Sox in mid-1913 and pitched the bottom of the eighth inning on July 11 in St. Louis with Boston down 5-1 to the Browns. The right-hander hit the first batter, but retired the next three, each […]

Henry “Hank” Gehring wasn’t a household word around the neighborhoods of St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1900, but in the coming years the right-handed pitcher made a name for himself while leaving a distinctive mark or two upon baseball history. Gehring called St. Paul home during his entire career in organized ball. He made the climb […]

July 1918 was perhaps the most momentous month in Walt Kinney’s life. The Texas League – like all minor leagues during the summer of 1918 – had been facing dwindling attendance and  a steady stream of young players leaving for the Great War in Europe, or accepting war-related employment. Finally, on July 7, the league canceled the […]

Third baseman Charlie Hayes was a solid journeyman. He played for seven teams over 14 years in the majors from 1988 through 2001. He had a good glove, a strong arm, and some pop in his bat. His best offensive numbers came in 1993 with an expansion club, the Colorado Rockies. Yet the moment for […]

As a 33-year-old veteran outfielder, “call me Mike” McCormick was a major contributor to the Boston Braves’ run to the 1948 pennant. In 343 at-bats in 115 games, the right-handed-hitting McCormick batted .303, to help solidify the Braves outfield. A pinch hitter extraordinaire, Mike stroked six hits in 14 tries off the bench. He started […]

For John Denny and George Hendrick, their actions absolutely spoke louder than their words on August 19, 1979, when the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the San Francisco Giants, 4-0, before a crowd of 42,622 at Busch Stadium. Denny pitched 6⅓ shutout innings and Hendrick powdered two home runs to lead the Cardinals to a three-game […]

On the evening of Friday, May 27, 1994, 3,954 fans gathered at Municipal Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota, to watch the Colorado Silver Bullets, a pioneering all-women’s team, take on the Richfield (Minnesota) Rockets.1 The Silver Bullets, coached by 318-game winner and Hall of Fame inductee Phil Niekro, were in the midst of their inaugural […]

In response to the new “freak delivery” rules implemented for 1920, American League President Ban Johnson allowed teams to designate two pitchers who could continue throwing the spitball for one more season,1 while the National League did not limit the number of authorized spitball pitchers.2 The thought was that the transitional year would give those […]

The spring of 1970 was a season of turmoil on college campuses across the United States. Student protests of the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia escalated after four students in Ohio were killed on May 4 during a demonstration at Kent State University.1 A mid-May nationwide survey reported student strikes at 278 colleges, […]

When Nolan Ryan struck out 16 batters in the second game of a 1971 Mets-Padres doubleheader, a trade seemed as unlikely as fictional TV news producer Lou Grant transforming from gruff to cuddly in Mary Tyler Moore, an iconic sitcom of the era. But the unthinkable happened about 6½ months after Ryan’s May 29 drubbing […]

An “all services” honor guard with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s casket in the East Room of the White House, April 14, 1945. (FDR LIBRARY)   On December 8, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his famous speech that famously called December 7 “a date which will live in infamy.” On April 12, 1945, Roosevelt died […]

“Wot! Youse didn’t see de Brooklyns dumped? … Dere eyes wuz filled with cotton.” — Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 30, 1896   In their home opener on Wednesday, April 29, 1896, the Brooklyn Bridegrooms of the National League hosted the Washington Senators, and enthusiastic Brooklyn fans filled Eastern Park for the matchup. The ballpark was […]

In 1997 Todd Helton was one of baseball’s most prominent prospects – and a subject of controversy in the Colorado Rockies’ struggle to sustain their early-expansion success. Mundane matters triggered his big-league debut that summer: one player’s looming disciplinary action, another’s batting slump, and a calf injury to a third. But Helton’s takeover of the […]

This article was originally published in The 1939 Baltimore Elite Giants (SABR, 2024), edited by Frederick C. Bush, Thomas Kern, and Bill Nowlin.   In 1938 the Baltimore Elite Giants had taken part in the Negro National League II playoffs and were looking forward to the 1939 season under a new manager. George Scales had […]